Mark Waugh's day in the middle

Daniel Laidlaw

England failed to heed the lessons of the first Test on the second day of the second Test at Lord's that left the hosts trailing by 68 runs with the last half of the Australian batting remaining.

England lost their last six wickets for the addition of only a further 66 in the first session and Mark Waugh struck his first Lord's century as Australia consolidated their position in an uninterrupted day's play.

England's outlook would have been worse were it not for the wickets of the Waugh twins in the final session.

First Test centurions Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist still stand between England and the tail and their progress on Saturday will determine whether England have an opportunity to set Australia a fourth innings target or if they will repeat the innings defeat of the first Test.

After Glenn McGrath's 5/54 helped dismiss England for 187 ten minutes prior to lunch, Australia slipped to 27/2 when Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting were nipped out early before the England attack repeated its collective mistake of bowling too short to a Waugh batsman and simply played Mark into form. Andrew Caddick's dismissal of Michael Slater for 25 with the score at 105 presented England with an opening before a partnership of 107 between Mark and Steve Waugh took the game away.

Australia made an ideal start to the day when McGrath dismissed overnight batsmen Alec Stewart and Graham Thorpe in the space of two overs inside the first half hour of play. Stewart recorded a duck when he was drawn into a hasty defensive shot to a ball that bounced more than he expected and brushed the glove through to Gilchrist. McGrath then got the important wicket of Thorpe for 20 with another shorter length delivery from around the wicket that was angled in at the body and seamed away, with Thorpe committed to playing a shot and flicking his hands at the ball for an edge behind.

England were 131/7 when Craig White sliced McGrath to gully for 0 to give the fast bowler his second five-wicket haul at Lord's. Despite the array of fielders lined up in the cordon, White attempted to drive and McGrath's outswing saw the ball take the outer half of the bat to Hayden at the finer of two gullies. Despite the bright conditions there was appreciably more swing and seam evident than on the first day. With McGrath, not a noted swinger of the ball, able to move the ball through the air to complement his considerable movement off the seam, England were in trouble.

Despite the the excellent bowling conditions, the arrival of Dominic Cork distracted McGrath and England's highest partnership of the innings followed. McGrath decided to target Cork with several bouncers and subsequently lost focus, as Cork and the hard-working Ian Ward increased the tempo to add 47 for the eighth wicket. When Jason Gillespie switched ends to relieve McGrath after a long spell, he immediately claimed the wicket of Cork for 24 when the batsman slashed hard to backward point, where Ponting dived forward to hold low to the ground.

Shane Warne, who had only bowled two overs up to that point, then finished off the tail by bowling Caddick from a deflection off the pad and also bowling Gough, demoted from No. 10 to No. 11, who simply drove over a flighted ball of yorker length and had middle stump knocked back. Ward, faced with the difficulty of batting at No. 7 and having to survive with the tail, remained 23 not out.

Caddick and Gough initially enjoyed the same success McGrath had pre-lunch when they dismissed Hayden and Ponting. Hayden was out for 0 in just the second over, caught by Butcher at second slip pushing down the line of the ball in Caddick's first over, while Ponting recorded his second failure when out for 14, though he was far less culpable. Like McGrath had done to Stewart and Thorpe, Gough produced a virtually unplayable ball that reared up from outside off and had Ponting fending desperately to Thorpe at third slip.

From that auspicious start England's bowling soon slipped, as the strategy to Mark Waugh was fatally flowed. With both Slater and Waugh disconcerted by the excessive seam, England embarked upon a misguided ploy to have Waugh caught on the leg side against short-pitched bowling. Instead of trying to get Waugh caught in slips by moving the ball away and testing his footwork early on, Atherton installed a mid wicket and backward square leg in a concerted plan to have Waugh caught by bowling at his ribs. Although he looked awkward, Waugh mostly played the ball to ground as Gough and Caddick merely honed his leg-side shots.

Having played Waugh into form, the support bowling of Craig White and Dominic Cork failed to contain him and it was clear from the start that Waugh was in excellent touch. White and Cork, patently a class below Gough and Caddick, were distinctly unpenetrative and strained to make an impression, thereafter kept from bowling in tandem.

With Waugh striking the ball supremely Slater had less of the strike and was well contained. For the major part of his innings Slater played within himself, maturely adapting to the conditions and altering his natural game, which he had to do in order to survive. That sensible mindset seemed to change around half hour before tea, when Slater attempted an extravagant pull to a regulation Caddick delivery. He appeared to needlessly feel pressure to keep up with Waugh and became determined to play the pull shot no matter what the cost, which brought his downfall to Caddick for 25. To a short ball outside the line of off stump, Slater went for the pull but only nicked through to Stewart.

Mark Waugh was almost run out to the first ball his brother faced, backing up too far, but Ramprakash's throw from mid wicket struck his bat and became lodged under him as he dived. England nearly had further success when Caddick was certain he had trapped Steve Waugh lbw, with only the height saving him, before Mark Waugh edged the last ball of the session past gully, where a diving White may have just touched it.

In stark contrast to their partnership of 133 in the first Test, Mark was the fluent partner while Steve played the supporting role. England seemed doomed to repeat history when Gough dropped a caught and bowled chance off Steve Waugh. Although the mistimed drive was low and Gough was forced to dive, it was an opportunity that could have been taken. An immensely frustrated Gough then proceeded to bowl too short and forgot the length that presented the chance in the first place.

Though clearly annoyed at the lack of reward for a few good balls and evidently considering himself unlucky by the odd edge over slips, Gough actually lacked consistency and generally followed up a series of testing deliveries with poor ones, thus not applying enough constant pressure to force the wicket he felt he deserved. To compound matters, both Gough and Caddick bowled far too many no-balls, six and nine respectively in England's total of 21. The impression they gave, in body language and reactions, as the Waughs flourished was that somehow they were unlucky or had suffered an injustice, which was impossible to understand given the errors in both strategy and execution.

In the nervous nineties and with previous Lord's scores of 99 and 93 behind him, Waugh endured a bouncer barrage from Caddick and Cork before finally achieving his first hundred at the ground with an edge to fine leg.

Mark Waugh never appears the kind of batsman to set himself for a massive score and, feeling invincible after a four through mid on, attempted a non-existent single to that position where Gough collected the ball and made a direct hit from virtually side on to complete a superb run out and snap the partnership. Waugh's day in the middle was worth 108.

Mark's feat was not to be matched by his brother, who on 45 departed to a rare type of dismissal. After endless short balls from countless bowlers over the years, all the toil paid off for Dominic Cork when he had Waugh caught behind with a rising delivery at the body that brushed his raised gloves on the way down the leg side. At 230/5, Australia were half out with a 43 run lead.

Damien Martyn, enjoying a Bradman-like tour of England with five hundreds in various forms of the game to date, began as if he already had fifty runs behind him and with a watchful Gilchrist saw Australia to stumps at 255/5. They are the considerable road blocks England must overcome to get back into the Test.

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